What I actually said when people asked why I was doing all this extra work myself

Had friends and family genuinely puzzled about why I was spending so many evenings and weekends on document gathering and drafting rather than "just hiring someone to handle it all" — a reasonable question, and I want to share how I actually thought about it, since I suspect others field similar questions. My honest answer: no one else was going to understand the specific significance of my own achievements as well as I could, and translating that understanding into evidence a reviewer would find persuasive genuinely required my own direct involvement, even with an attorney's guidance on strategy and framing. An attorney can guide the legal argument; only I could supply the deep, accurate context about what my own work actually meant and why. That said, this isn't a universal prescription — some people are well-served by an attorney and team handling much more of the work directly, and that's a legitimate choice depending on your situation, budget, and how much time you realistically have. I just want to name that a heavily self-directed approach is a real, reasonable choice too, not something unusual to explain away.